'Survivor' stunts own power

Mick LaSall, Times Union

By Mick LaSalle

Updated 7:30 am, Friday, January 10, 2014

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Taylor Kitsch, as Michael Murphy, Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell, Ben Foster as Matt Axe Axelson, and Emile Hirsch as Danny Dietz in a scene from the film, Lone Survivor." In the age of the superhero, the movies' most reliable real-life hero has been the Navy SEAL. "Lone Survivor," is the latest in a string of films, including "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Act of Valor" to honor the Navy's special operations force with as much faithfulness as the filmmakers could muster. (AP Photo/Universal Pictures) ORG XMIT: NYET215

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Taylor...

Gregory E. Peters/Universal Pictures
(L to R) Marcus Luttrell (MARK WAHLBERG), Danny Dietz (EMILE HIRSCH) and Michael Murphy (TAYLOR KITSCH) in "Lone Survivor", the incredible story of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative who are ambushed by enemy forces in the mountains of Afghanistan.

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell, Ali Suliman as Gulab and Rohan Chand as his young son, in a scene from the film, ÂLone Survivor." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Mark...

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows Emile Hirsch as Danny Dietz in a scene from the film, ÂLone Survivor." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures, Gregory R. Peters)

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows Emile Hirsch as...

This photo released by Universal Pictures shows Taylor Kitsch as Michael Murphy in a scene from the film, ÂLone Survivor." (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)

(L to R, foreground) Gulab's young son (ROHAN CHAND) is embraced by Marcus Luttrell (MARK WAHLBERG) in "Lone Survivor", the incredible story of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission in the mountains of Afghanistan.

(L to R, foreground) Gulab's young son (ROHAN CHAND) is embraced by...

MARK WAHLBERG as Marcus Luttrell in "Lone Survivor", the incredible story of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative in the mountains of Afghanistan.
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MARK WAHLBERG as Marcus Luttrell in "Lone Survivor", the incredible...

This Dec. 5, 2013 photo shows director Peter Berg, from left, actor Mark Wahlberg and former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell in New York. In the age of the superhero, the movies' most reliable real-life hero has been the Navy SEAL. "Lone Survivor," starring Mark Wahlberg, is the latest in a string of films, including "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Act of Valor" to honor the Navy's special operations force with as much faithfulness as the filmmakers could muster. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP) ORG XMIT: NYET214

The title of "Lone Survivor" is accurate enough, but it has an inevitable impact on how the movie is experienced. It tells us going in that all the main characters are going to be killed, except for the fellow played by Mark Wahlberg. Yet it's a full 85 minutes of screen time before Wahlberg actually becomes the "lone survivor." Before that, we watch as the men — Navy SEALS on a 2005 mission in Afghanistan — try different things and hope for the best, while we sit and know the worst.

Based on a memoir by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, "Lone Survivor" is in many ways a fairly straight-up war movie, something that could almost be called old-fashioned. It's about a group of guys who know and trust each other, who have all endured elite training, have mutual codes of behavior and a shared sense of humor. The script expends much energy on making each man vivid to the audience, before we watch them all get thrown into a dangerous situation. In this case, they're on a mission to either capture or kill a Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah.

Yet three things make "Lone Survivor" different from most old war movies, and not for the best. The first is that title. The second is the war itself. Although the Afghanistan war is one that the vast majority of Americans endorsed, it doesn't have the feeling of a great national struggle for survival, like World War II. The third is that the movie is not about citizen soldiers — average guys drafted to do a dirty job that just has to be done. It's about Navy SEALs, which sets up a whole other kind of expectation.

The appeal of the SEALs, at least as a movie subject, is that they're not regular guys, that they're amazing and can do things regular military people can't, as in Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty." But "Lone Survivor," from start to finish, is a tale of disaster, of bad luck and bad communication, perhaps even faulty planning, though that's hard to say. So the movie loses the common touch of average folk trying to get by, while also losing some of the pleasure of watching a crack unit at work.

Director Peter Berg takes us into the world of the SEALs, which is of moderate interest. All people like to believe in their own toughness, but few of us ever know for sure. These guys do. As the movie shows, their training is mentally and physically brutal, and their powers of concentration are intense. The movie recounts a real 2005 operation gone bad, and the punishment these men endured is beyond belief — perhaps literally so. According to the movie, most of the men sustained multiple bullet wounds and still managed to trek long distances and put up a strong fight.

After an introduction where we meet the guys, the next hour is devoted to combat scenes, which are well executed, especially in the way they create, within the viewer, a fear and dread of the enemy. Berg keeps his camera on the men and on their perspective, so that we're always surprised when they are surprised — and alarmed when we see the brief flash of a Taliban soldier dashing from one rock to the next.

The actors, especially Wahlberg as Luttrell and Ben Foster as Matt Axelson, are convincing in their humanity, agony and ferocity, but there is no escaping a sameness that sets in by the second or third time the men are shown tumbling down a stone hill and landing on rocks. We might look through the movie toward appreciating what the actual men went through, but that alone can't turn "Lone Survivor" into a satisfying movie experience. Nor can it compensate for the ongoing damage done by a title that casts all the action in futility and doom, even before it happens.